Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours, Complete Starter Kit (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fortunately I read this book before reading the two previous reviews. In the same way that no one should expect to be fluent in a foreign language after 24 hours, it takes longer to fully master XML. As an introductory text, Michael Morrison's "Learning XML in 24 hours" is accessible and personable. Maybe the other reviewers didn't appreciate his sense of humour, but his book is informative and fun.

The reason for 1 star is that i cannot put zero stars.

The book tends to ramble on and on and is very light in actual examples that matter. The same concepts are repeated over and over again.

It could of used many more examples rather than blabbing on and on about the same thing. Yet, an entire chapter is dedicated to SVG? Not a very focused book.

Needs a lot of editing.

Whole heartedly not recommended.

I'm only giving this 1 star because Amazon won't let readers give negative stars. The chapter that contains "a quick history of html" is so far off base, I wouldn't read the rest of this crappy book. The 'author' (I use that word very hesitantly) claims that HTML is 'a simplified version of SGML'. There was a bumpersticker in the early 70s that read "Question Authority", and boy! does it apply to this book! The book writer is NO authority on SGML nor on HTML, thus HOW could he be expected to be any kind of authority on XML? HTML is a DTD WITHIN SGML. It was not developed by 'physicists' to create 'web pages' but as part of Timothy Berners-Lee WWW project for collaborative sharing of documents. While it is true that Timothy began working on the pre-cursor to HTML while working as a junior programmer-consultant for CERN (which is a Physics lab) he was NEVER a physicist, but a designer of typographic-programs (at the time). BY THE WAY, XML is a SUBSET of SGML. SGML is NOT an 'overcomplicated' language, unless you happen to be a twit who can't program to begin with. That's like comparing VB to C. VB is for lazy programmers. C is a far more versatile programming language. It is the same with SGML. XML is to SGML like 'reader's digest' book versions are to the real book, or maybe like those synopsis books that kids used to use for book reviews of books they were too undisciplined and unethical to read.

Don't waste your money on this book, and maybe it's time to forget all about Sams ' in 24 hours' books. CR*P.